


Shades of Red

by oh_mr_adams



Category: 1776 (1972), 1776 - Edwards/Stone
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, just depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25516678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_mr_adams/pseuds/oh_mr_adams
Summary: AU - What if the vote on independence hadn't passed?
Relationships: John Adams/Thomas Jefferson
Kudos: 22





	Shades of Red

_Silence._ _  
_ _  
_ _Vague images of mouths moving. People moving. Arms waving and teeth bared and smug smirks and faces buried in hands. Silence._ _  
_ _  
_ All John Adams was aware of was silence. Silence, except for the single, monotone ring that permeated his ears, drilling into his brain with a high pitched whine that drowned out all other sounds. A thick, absorbing silence. Mouths moved all around the room, vague imitations of an argument, but John couldn’t hear anything through the all-encompassing silence. The ringing in his brain started to ache. He wanted to flee. He would have run, run to someplace safer and never looked back, only he couldn’t; frozen to his seat, his muscles some alien lifeform that refused to heed the demands of his panicking brain.   
  
With eleven yeas, one nay, and one abstention, the vote was overturned.   
  
_A sea of voices swelling into an intolerable symphony. Grating on his ears, reverberating in his chest until it ached. All balancing out into silence._

_  
_ For once in his life, John Adams was silent too.

  
Ever the dutiful sycophant, Wilson had taken one look into Dickinson’s eyes and followed suit. Dickinson sat in his seat, waving off any arguments with that usual debonair grin, one arm slung loosely around Wilson’s shoulders.   
  
Wilson had rendered worthless John’s year of labor, all for that arm around his shoulder. The man at least had the dignity to look ashamed of himself.   
  
Dickinson refused to humor any argument spat in his direction. He had no reason to. He’d won. People milled and churned about the room, those who still held faith in the idea of independence, all arguing and spouting frothing hatred towards that smug, impenetrable bastard. John’s allies. Not his friends though, John knew, never his friends. He was too obnoxious. Obnoxious, obnoxious, obnoxious, annoying, and disliked; hatable, irritating, blunt, tiresome, inconvenient, hatable, hatable, hatable. John Adams did not have friends.   
  
He only had himself and the constant ringing in his ears. He was glad he didn’t have the strength to move, for if he did he would have cried, uncontrollably, in a way that would have made people look at him with their usual disgusted expressions and then, as usual, ignore him. Ignoring him had become second nature for everyone in the room, no matter how loud he tried to be. He wished he could have died, there in that moment, slumped over onto his desk. No one would have noticed. The sharp, monotone whine drilled into his skull for the remainder of the afternoon.   
  
John could only tell time was passing by the color of the room; the way the sun cast its pale orange glow about the place and how shadows gradually grew longer and longer and redder as the hours passed. The shouting, though John couldn’t really hear it, gradually grew duller, the angry expressions fading into those of vague annoyance, then resignation. Moment by moment, the raging voices in the room had slowly given up. By the time the room was bathed in a dull crimson, most of them had slowly filed out, abandoned their cause to the winner.   
  
The winner stood over him, that usual crooked, smug grin adorning his face. John couldn’t look at him; not out of any sense of shame, but out of the complete inability to move. His body wasn’t his, it simply sat there while his brain ran in circles, circles that always wound up at the same inescapable point:

_You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed you failed you failed you failed you failed and this is all your fault. All your fault. All your fault. All your fault all your fault all your fault all your fault all your fault._ _  
_ _  
_ Dickinson continued to stare down at him. John felt he was expected to do something. His stomach lurched and he threw up in his mouth. It took the only remaining energy he had left to swallow it back down. Dickinson mumbled something incoherent, something akin to the sound of bees swarming around John’s head, and left.   
  
Only a few people persisted in the chamber, as John could tell, though he didn’t look around to check. All sat in silence - real silence this time - and again, John felt compelled to do something. To rise. To order everyone about with his usual last-chance-energy. The fire that had driven them all this far. The blazing essence of destruction that made up his existence.  
  
He had nothing. He was nothing. And he rose from his seat.   
  
He could feel the heads around him turn, expectantly, some frail sort of hope in their eyes that he had some idea, some inner strength that would drag them out of this, but he had none and so he knew better than to look. He simply went to the window, staring out at the soft red glow that blanketed Philadelphia’s streets. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the window sill. A rose-colored shine that reflected off the cobblestones and puddles, adding pinkish hues to every window and home. Made only warmer by the slow lighting of the streetlamps, a gentle sort of fire that served only to cast the world in it’s inviting light, guiding the people of the city to the loving safety of their homes.   
  
_Bang._ _  
_ _  
_ John wasn’t sure what had happened, until a chorus of gasps from behind him, mixed with the sudden screaming pain in his forehead and the shades of crimson that slowly flowed to fill his vision brought him to the realization that he’d smashed his head into the window sill.   
  
_Bang._

And again.  
  
 _Bang._ _  
_ _  
_ And again. And again and again and again and again until he felt a set of arms forcibly wrenching him from the wall until his fingernails bled, one arm curled around his head so that he couldn’t move it again, and the other pinning his arms to his sides.   
  
His own screaming was the first thing he’d really heard that whole afternoon. He vaguely registered being begged to stop, please stop, just stop as he struggled. He kicked and screamed until he entirely lost the energy to do so, going limp in his captor’s arms. Then, gently, ever so gently, he was released onto the floor, where he backed himself up against the wall, pulling his knees into his chest.   
  
A group of men stood over him. John Hancock had likely been the one to grab him, he thought, judging by the scarlet stain on his sleeve. Blood, at that point, was dripping heavily into his eyes, and John lazily tried to wipe it away. It continued to trickle down. Deep scarlet flooded his vision and he couldn’t quite tell how badly he’d hurt himself. Franklin was there too, looking distressed, like John was some kind of caged and wounded animal that it would be a mercy to put down. He wanted so badly to be put down. To go to sleep. To rest. To be removed from the scene of his failure. The two men looked away from him. John didn’t blame them.   
  
He watched their pitying expressions for a while as they slowly bored a hole in his chest until - entirely unexpectedly - he felt a warmth by his side. Then an arm around his shoulders. Another arm around his chest, until he was pulled into a hug in a flash of warm browns and reds. Warmth, warmth, and the familiar smell of ink and cinnamon, a soft auburn glow, and a hand pressed against the back of his head. Lips against his temple. The warmth of tears rolling down his cheeks. The shame that accompanied the realization they were his own.   
  
Thomas held him there, for a long while, longer than John felt he deserved. Until the reddish-orange hues of his failure were absolved in the pitch-darkness of night.

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to be angsty but let's be real, the world would be a better place if America hadn't gained its independence lol


End file.
